Movie Review: Lee (2023)

Genre: Biographical Drama  

Director: Ellen Kuras  

Starring: Kate Winslet, Josh O'Connor, Alexander Skarsgård, Andy Samberg, Marion Cotillard  

Running Time: 116 minutes  

Synopsis: In 1977, renowned wartime photographer Lee Miller (Kate Winslet) is at her home in England answering questions from an interviewer (Josh O'Connor). Flashbacks reveal her story starting in France of 1938, where she gives up a modeling career and takes up photography. She starts a romance with artist Roland Penrose (Alexander Skarsgård) and they relocate to England, where Lee secures a job with Vogue magazine covering the homefront during World War Two. She befriends Life photographer David Scherman (Andy Samberg), and with D-Day looming, finally secures a reassignment to the front lines. In Europe, Lee's cameras capture the horrors of war, from badly wounded soldiers to the chaos of combat - and more.

What Works Well: A committed Kate Winslet portrays Miller as a woman determined to break down barriers, and traces an arc from the glamour of the pre-war French countryside to the grim sites of unimaginable atrocities. In the 1977 scenes, Winslet barely conceals entrenched trauma, smoking and alcohol repurposed from objects of picturesque pleasure to failing facades. Director Ellen Kuras finds intensity in the under-fire scenes in France, but bullets and explosions are also just a prelude to what awaits deeper in Europe.

What Does Not Work As Well: Despite a valiant effort, Winslet struggles to express the naive courage required for a woman in her early 30s to venture into war, defaulting to world-weary determination rather than young adventurism. By definition, this is the story of an observer rather than an instigator, and while Miller is admirably portrayed as an early feminist challenging man-made rules, the strength of the material resides more in the historic wartime milieu than within the photographer.

Key Quote:

Lee: There's so much life in a person's eyes. Right up until the moment that there isn't.



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